November 15, 2007

Ever Get That Weird Feeling...

Have you ever been talking to some stranger -- at a party, at a convention, at work -- and everything seems to be going fine... when all of a sudden, you realize the conversation has lurched southwards? You may not even know when it happened; but of a sudden, you feel the same frisson that infused Shelley Duvall in the Shining when she discovered that the entire novel that her husband Jack Nicholson had written consisted of nothing but endless pages of "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." That moment when you realize you've been talking to a crazy uncle who escaped from his nephew's attic. Well...

"Every place you go you hear about no progress being made in Iraq," said Senate Democratic majority leader Harry Reid.

"The government is stalemated today, as it was six months ago, as it was two years ago," Reid told reporters, warning US soldiers were caught in the middle of a civil war.

"It is not getting better, it is getting worse," he said.

It's almost as if Majority Leader Harry "Pinky" Reid (D-Caesar's Palace, 90%) suddenly started telling us about "tse-tse flies the size of eagles" carrying off young children, which Reid observed during his "nine months in the bush." [Ten points to the first commenter who knows where the tse-tse fly thing came from.] It begins to dawn on the listener that this isn't just Reid playing "Democrats' advocate;" the man truly believes the insanities that he utters.

And that imbues me with an existential terror: If a man with such a tenuous grasp of reality can make his way to the second-most powerful position in the Congress, what does that say about the natural insanity-filters that previously protected us from the worst excesses of parliamentary style democracies? Those filters that are supposed to keep nutbags like David Duke and Ross Perot out of national office -- what happened to them?

Every major newspaper and TV news broadcaster in America has been forced by circumstances to admit that, heck, who'd a thunk it, we appear to have turned the corner and be winning in Iraq now. But Harry Reid can't see it, can't see any of it: "It is not getting better, it is getting worse." (Considering that back in April, Sen. Reid announced that "this war is lost," one wonders how much worse it could be? Is al-Qaeda in Iraq poised to seize control of Kansas?)

So Reid thinks it's "worse" now that Gen. David Petraeus, and especially his top counterinsurgency (COIN) aide, Australian Lt.Col. David Kilcullen, have succeeded in turning Iraqi Sunni decisively against al-Qaeda -- even to the point of taking up arms against the terrorists?

It's "worse" with the ruling Shia now at least trying to prosecute top Shiite political leaders for crimes against humanity? (We're still waiting to see if this first essay succeeds.)

It's "worse" even though thousands of displaced Iraqi families are returning to Iraq, especially Baghdad?

It's "worse" despite the huge burst of reconstruction projects, which are no longer being bombed by bin-Ladenites who no longer infest Iraq?

This is quite simply a bizarre and worrisome delusion on a level with "Truther" ravings. But Reid is mostly harmless, because his insanity battles against his raging ineptitude: His inability to get even liberal Republicans to sign onto most of his schemes to declare defeat in Iraq and just "move on" is legendary (and a godsend). But if the filters are unable to weed out the broken Reid and the loopy Ron Paul (and his, ah, interesting supporters) -- would they also fail to weed out the next David Duke?

Without functioning "sanity shields," how do we stop an American Ahmadinejad from being elected president, governor, or senator? I don't fret about a simplistic, unsubtle troll like Rep. John Murtha (D-PA, 65%) or Britain's George Galloway; they have no sway over the Congress anent their madness. The Democratic opposition to the war is not primarily driven by Murtha, who is out of step with his Democratic colleagues on many other issues; it's driven by lunatics like George Soros, a multibillionaire money-changer who has both the intelligence and the resources to turn his fantasy into our nightmarish reality.

I worry about the person who is both insane and intelligent, psychotic but smooth talking. We appear no longer to have a press, punditry, or people who first ask "does this guy connect with the real world as we know it," before asking whether he sounds "sincere." Sincerity is overrated as a lodestone; people can be sincerely demented.

We could survive a hypocritical, lying, vengeance-driven harpy like Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-Carpetbag, 95%); we've had them before (Nixon, Clinton 1.0). But I don't know that in this age, we could survive a president like Robert A. Heinlein's "Nehemiah Scudder" or the Dead Zone's "Greg Stillson" -- or alternatively, one of the real-life radical-secularist terrorists of ELF and ALF and infesting International ANSWER.

We desperately need to reinstitute the sanity filter in American politics, asking first whether candidates for public office have all their marbles before we even get to the question of whether we agree with some of their tenets: Republicans are no more helped by Ron Paul than Democrats are by Harry Reid -- or than Independents were by H. Ross Perot.

The best weapon against the reality-challenged is of course mockery: Make fun of them. This is not only effective but highly enjoyable. If you're humorless and dour, a "grim and grisly gruesome Griswold," then at least you can point out the insanities of the insane.

I know if feels like fighting a cripple; but unlike some guy in a wheelchair, who might make an excellent president (though our only experiment was hardly a raging success), some guy or gal who literally mistakes fantasy for reality is neither cute nor lovable (nor even livable) when he's sitting in the big chair with his finger on the button. Time to stuff your pity in a sack and loudly beholdest the beam in your mad-uncle presidential candidate's brain.

On all sides the aisle. Reality is too important to be left to the surreal.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 15, 2007, at the time of 7:35 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: South Park Conservative

The tsetse fly reference is from The In-Laws?

The above hissed in response by: South Park Conservative at November 15, 2007 7:57 PM

The following hissed in response by: South Park Conservative

Reid is one of those really dangerous liberals: one who believes his map of the world really IS the world. The map is NOT the territory. 10 points to the one who knows where that comes from!

The above hissed in response by: South Park Conservative at November 15, 2007 8:03 PM

I wasn't sure who said it first, so I looked it up. I wouldn't have thought of him; but after seeing it was he, it makes perfect sense, of course.

He wasn't the last. I particularly liked RAW's reformulation: The menu isn't the meal.

However, I would point out the concept certainly predates the 1931 appearance of the phrase. Consider the Rene Magritte painting The Treachery Of Images, or La trahison des images: It's a painting of a pipe with the legend beneath it, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("this is not a pipe").

It's not, of course; it's a painting of one.

Anyway, La trahison des images dates from 1928-1929, or at least two years before the first occurrance in the form you quoted.

Speaking of mockery, Harry Reid is "The Brain" from "Pinky and the Brain", only with a worse personality, and of course Pelosi is "pinky", only dumber.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinky_and_the_Brain
http://universostarwars.mforos.com/737115/4385779-pinky-y-cerebro-thx-1138/

It begins to dawn on the listener that this isn't just Reid playing "Democrats' advocate;" the man truly believes the insanities that he utters.

The only problem with that conclusion is that "Dinghy Harry" is a politician. I would also say that he isn't stupid, either. He knows exactly what he's doing. It's all politics and this Reid the lousy SOB is playing dirty politics at the expense of U.S. soldiers under fire in the field.

If there is any inkling of Reid being stupid, it's his and Pelosi's thinking that they're going to get away with it. Near the end of the first linked piece by Dafydd, the following is mentioned:

Should the bill, as expected, fail to pass, Democrats say they will not give Bush any more money this year for the war. That would force the Pentagon to dip into its regular budget to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There is no way anybody would forgive the Democrats for not funding the troops while they are actively battling the enemy, the enemy that was declared by Congress. Even Reid gets that; but, it's all politics with this guy, and he knows it. And that's what makes him really dangerous.

One other thought, hopefully typed with no typos:
The way to call the bluff of the dhimmies on this is for the Republicans to loudly introduce a full funding clean bill to the floors of both Houses and force the dhimmies to go on record of refusing to fund troops in battle and for weakening the defense of the US.

The above hissed in response by: hunter at November 16, 2007 5:53 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dishman

By some people's metrics, Iraq is indeed "getting worse". I seem to recall one commander talking about how badly things were going, and the need for everyone to work together.

I hope that Pinky isn't getting his spiritual guidance from OBL.

The above hissed in response by: Dishman at November 16, 2007 8:55 AM

The following hissed in response by: hunter

Put up a resolution thanking the troops for their hard work in making Iraq better. Let the dhimmies stand agaisnt that.

The above hissed in response by: hunter at November 16, 2007 8:59 AM

The following hissed in response by: Geoman

The filters are being actively suppressed by a press suffering from severe BDS. Hopefully they remember to flip them back on before Hillary gets elected.

The above hissed in response by: Geoman at November 16, 2007 9:19 AM

The following hissed in response by: phil g

"We appear no longer to have a press, punditry, or people who first ask "does this guy connect with the real world as we know it," before asking whether he sounds "sincere.""

Ahhh...that's probably because the press/MSM is largely bat **** looney as well.

[Careful of the language, please, Phil g; we're concerned about that on this blog. Thanks, the Mgt.]

The above hissed in response by: phil g at November 16, 2007 9:32 AM

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